Seeing as preparedness is key, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best things you can do with your time once you’re unemployed.

Find a corporate entity that you don’t particularly like and TAKE THEM DOWN.

A friend told me a story about a mysterious panther that has been spotted off a walking trail in Wollongong. Conduct a mission to locate it. But voyage at your own peril. I will not be held responsible when the panther gouges out a section of your upper thigh.

Shoot a time-lapse in as many different cities as you can drag your jobless ass through.

Volunteer your time teaching a class in something you’re good at. Even if it’s something rather silly. Here are a few I’d sign up for in a heartbeat:

Whistling, for those that still can’t and have tried EVERYFUCKINGTHING.

Understanding Inception, a detailed workshop series explaining the science behind sci-fi films. In such a class, one should be allowed to ask as many questions as they like and never be called stupid.

The Science Behind Beat Boxing. An in-depth study of the vocal cords allowing students an insight into how it is possible to have two voices without being possessed. Spoiler: IT’S NOT.

Devote your life to engineering a perfect scent, the greatest perfume of all time. Call it Elon. Post the formula online in the name of open sourcing.

Adopt more puppies than you could ever have imagined caring for. Spend all the days rolling around on the floor with them.

Perform some extensive research into Eggs Benedict Cumberbatch’s family history. Lady needs a recipe.

Dig deep into your dark, dark soul and ignite a spark of altruism. Volunteer some time aiding the less fortunate.

Wolfpack it… Gather your pals, learn the lines to your favourite films and recreate them. If completed with the necessary attention to detail, this can take decades.

Rush small children on the street and preach to them about the technologies of old. Carry a printed newspaper just so you can fling it at them while making your point. Be sure to collect said newspaper after flinging. Lord knows if you’ll ever find another.

Study something, just for the heck of it.

Become a conspiracy nut. You’ll get to put together one of those “mad-guy” pin boards with scratchy lines of red marker that connect important clues and take shaky hand-held video footage outside the gates of government facilities. Dammit thats a good one.

Steve Hughes is not only a classy, classy man but also an economic trailblazer.. read on as I prove it with a level of finesse only previously achieved by Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina. There is no need to follow that link it is completely irrelevant.

I touched briefly on the idea of allocating a universal basic income. This seems to be the only viable solution if we’re all pushed out of the workforce. It also sounds like a really good bloody time. There is enough wealth to go around, we know this. It’s just about distributing it in sensible ways. And having a little faith in ourselves to live meaningful lives even if we don’t have a 9 to 5 from which to gage our entire identity. You are more than your LinkedIn profile. I believe in you. Drum circle on the beach, WHO IS IN?

In case you’re too lazy to click the link I am copying in one of the author’s more pertinent insights because I’m just such a sweetheart.

“By redirecting that money pooling at the top doing comparatively very little, accumulating in ever increasing amounts through continual redistribution upwards from the bottom and the middle of the income spectrum, and recirculating that clotted money back down to the bottom and middle, this would actually expand the entire economy while making it more sustainable and more inclusive. This is how the body works. This is how engines work. This is how systems work.”

“The transport industry in the US employs about 3 million people, extrapolating world wide thats about 70 million jobs at a a minimum.” These jobs are already all but done for because autos are ALREADY BETTER DRIVERS THAN US. By all accounts they don’t feel the need to just-really-quickly-check if they received any Instagram likes while at the wheel. And probably won’t insist on opening the windows so everyone else can enjoy their Techno Jams of Summer playlist. This may be beside the point.

While it may be further away, it is also significant to note that your pearly white collar will not protect you from the bots for long.

“The cutting edge of programming isn’t super smart programmers writing bots, its super smart programmers writing bots that teach themselves to do things the programmers could never teach them to do.” This notion is exactly what governs the principles of the predicted intelligence explosion which will foreshadow the singularity. And it is exactly why we are all struggling to imagine that the clunky robots and machines we see now will soon learn and imagine and create in ways we never could. Once this shit hits it’s going to snowball rapid-fire. The current system CANNOT EXIST under these conditions.

Have a read of this article published by the ABC last year concerning these issues.

“Just like the original industrial revolution, this is creating large numbers of losers whose skills are no longer valued by the market. But this time it is not clear that new jobs will appear for these people to move into, for this time the machines can follow us nearly anywhere we try to go. This time technological unemployment may become a permanent fact that we have to deal with by changing how capitalism works. Our birthright as humans – the ability to produce things by our labour that others find valuable – may become economically worthless.”

Humans are quickly becoming redundant. The rise in automation will see an unprecedented level of unemployment. From truck drivers to doctors, no one’s job is safe. And with the exponential rates of development in technology, the influx of intelligent machines is going to hit us far sooner than we care to imagine.

What I’m suggesting is not a revolt against technological advancement. Would there not be more merit in coming to terms with the not so awful idea that there is no need for every person to have employment? When Kodak and it’s 145,000 employees were usurped by Instagram’s 13 there was a major lesson to be learned.

See

Very clever man.

The way to make such a system economically viable for the rest of us; a basic income. Governments heavily tax corporate entities, try very, very hard to resist their corrupt inclinations (robots can no doubt assist in policing this) and distribute the money amongst the entire population as a sort of unconditional welfare payment. The idea has already been seriously considered, with Switzerland’s government coming very close to passing a law for basic income. And you know if the Swiss are thinking about it it’s probably a good idea.

While the proposition obviously requires a change in policy it also requires, more fundamentally a change in mindset. Perhaps the purpose of life is closer to achieving a state of being in which robots are in fact doing all the work and society is allowed the time and the means with which to do whatever else it is they might, conquering the rubix cube, reading Plato, mastering the art of Tai Chi, for instance.

There seems to be a persisting idea that the purpose of our homogenised lives is to work, consistently, for an income with which we can purchase all the things we do or, more likely, don’t need. Just because this is the way things have always been does not necessarily mean it needs to continue.

Buckminster Fuller said it best about 40 years ago:

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest… We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”